Amid Ukraine war crisis, how Vladimir Putin will spend his 70th birthday

• Image Credit: Google

• Oct 7, 2022 | Dhupali Das

Putin is scheduled to attend a non-formal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States on his birthday in St. Petersburg...

Digital Desk: President Vladimir Putin turned 70 on Friday, prompting congratulatory messages from subordinates and a request from Patriarch Kirill for the lay and clergy to pray for the health of Russia's longest-serving paramount leader since Josef Stalin.

Putin, who took over as Kremlin leader on the last day of 1999, is facing the most serious challenge to his leadership since the invasion of Ukraine caused the most serious confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Putin is scheduled to attend a non-formal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States on his birthday in St. Petersburg, the city that served as Peter the Great's birthplace and previous imperial capital.

Obsequious officials lauded Putin as the saviour of contemporary Russia, while the patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia urged the population to pray for Putin's "health and longevity" for two days.

"We pray to you, our Lord God, for the head of the Russian State, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and ask you to give him your rich mercy and generosity, grant him health and longevity, and deliver him from all the resistance of visible and invisible enemies, confirm him in wisdom and spiritual strength, for all, Lord hear and have mercy," Kirill said.

Putin, who promised to put an end to the instability that engulfed Russia when the Soviet Union fell in 1991, is currently dealing with the most catastrophic war crisis any Kremlin leader has faced in at least a generation, dating back to the Afghan War of 1979–89.

Opponents such as imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny argue that Putin has led Russia down a path to ruin, erecting a brittle system of incompetent sycophants that will eventually collapse and plunge the country into turmoil.

Supporters claim that Putin spared Russia from being destroyed by an aggressive and arrogant West. They claim that he has reclaimed influence following the humiliations the Russian elite endured as the Cold War came to an end.

But Putin's invasion of Ukraine has so far floundered.

After more than seven months of the war, Russia has lost a significant amount of men and equipment and has recently been defeated on multiple fronts as Putin's army has lurched from one humiliating defeat to the next.

Putin has resorted to declaring the annexation of regions that are only partially under Russian control and whose borders, according to the Kremlin, have still to be established, and threatening to defend them with nuclear weapons.

A partial mobilization called by the president on September 21 has proceeded so chaotically that even Putin has been compelled to admit mistakes and order changes. To avoid being recruited, hundreds of thousands of men have fled to foreign countries.

Even normally loyal Kremlin allies have denounced the failings of the military-though they have stopped short, so far, of criticizing the president himself.

Reflecting on Putin's birthday, former Kremlin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov said: "On an anniversary, it's customary, to sum up, results, but the results are so deplorable that it would be better not to draw too much attention to the anniversary."